Andy's Pulp misadventures...

[Cat]

I have it on good authority from a dealer in Cairo that one of them is stuffed with precious jewels.
~ , ~

[Andy in Germany]

An exciting adventure on Accention Island, and an enjoyable part.

You appear to be using paper textures on your building's but distressing them rather than using them "neat" or as printed.  I'll have a look back and see if you explain your process because it's exactly what I'm looking to achieve in my current build.
Cheers

Some of it is on the blog, although not much detail:

Power station:

https://korschtal.wordpress.com/2023/03/12/paper-factory/

https://korschtal.wordpress.com/2023/05/20/cut-and-paste/

Bank:

https://korschtal.wordpress.com/2024/04/13/standing-stones/

https://korschtal.wordpress.com/2024/04/27/open-for-business/

Essentially I download a free texture, edit it in The Gimp, a free photoshop clone, and use them as an overlay on the card carcass. Gimp is much more accurate than a lot of the design packages supplied a freeware, so I could scale things down to within a milimetre of what I wanted.




This shows the outlines for cutting although to be honest later I just made the overlays oversized and positioned them by holding them up to the light so I could see the card through the paper.


Getting doors and wndows the right size after printing was a little tricky but I managed to get it down to a couple of milimetres. In the end I either "placed" the door on the printed "wall" and made an identical copy on the same sheet. This meant that I could cut around the door, and the hole would be thecorrect size for the copied door to be stuck behind it, although it did mean some caref use of black marker to hide the edge of the card. Alternatively I designed the card openings with a bit of space to allow for the inaccuracy. You can see that on here, where the lighter window surround contrasts with the darker primer on the "stone":




The "dirty" effect was simply searching for "old Walls" and then brushing dust from crushed oil pastels into the corners.

[Andy in Germany]

I have it on good authority from a dealer in Cairo that one of them is stuffed with precious jewels.
~ , ~

That could explain... wait, there's two of them? This changes everything...

[Spinal Tap]

That's been a great hour or so re-reading this thread- wonderful stuff.

[Vagabond]

Hi Andy, thanks for the links and info,  your idea with using Gimp and designing the wall complete with doors and windows is sound. You must be pretty acurate with cutting and gluing the walls to assemble the building.
The oil pastels sounds a good idea, I've never tried using weathering powders but have come across using cold tea to stain paper. I'm not sure what effect that will have on the glued down paper though. I use pva.

With the brick walls on the bank folding them into the window hole has worked well, I tend to use foamcore and I wonder if it's too thick and with my cutting too rough to try this.

Food for thought.
Thanks again.

[Andy in Germany]

Hi Andy, thanks for the links and info,  your idea with using Gimp and designing the wall complete with doors and windows is sound. You must be pretty acurate with cutting and gluing the walls to assemble the building.
The oil pastels sounds a good idea, I've never tried using weathering powders but have come across using cold tea to stain paper. I'm not sure what effect that will have on the glued down paper though. I use pva.

With the brick walls on the bank folding them into the window hole has worked well, I tend to use foamcore and I wonder if it's too thick and with my cutting too rough to try this.

Food for thought.
Thanks again.

Forgot to mention that generally speaking, the walls have a minimum of 3 pieces of card. On the outside I glue the 'brick", cut it, and then glue the "windows" or "doors" behind the apertures so they show through. On the inside I add any "Brick" or just paint the wall and add "Windows" or "doors" facing inside, Then I glue a piece of cereal packet onto the undecorated side of one "wall" and cut it to the side. I then glue the other wall on and line it up. This means I can later make an interior if so inclined, and the wall is fairly strong. Having a sandwich also helps cancel out warping because of the glue.

The problem with this method is often corners. On the Power station I added right-angled "buttresses" to cover them, I did the same on the bank and pretended they were concrete pillars. On the Casino I only had one corner, so I used a drainpipe.

I trained as a cabinetmaker, so I had to do a lot of technical drawings; three years of that taught me to draw and cut fairly accurately...

[FifteensAway]

Vagabond - a steel rule as a cutting guide (simple and fairly cheap rulers) and a SHARP blade are key.  I use X-acto knives and when accuracy matters a new blade comes out.  And I keep a supply at hand - just used last night.

[Andy in Germany]

Vagabond - a steel rule as a cutting guide (simple and fairly cheap rulers) and a SHARP blade are key.  I use X-acto knives and when accuracy matters a new blade comes out.  And I keep a supply at hand - just used last night.

A good point: the right tools for the job are important. One tip I was given many, many years ago by an older gent in a hardware store in the UK, was a carpet rail with a camber: the edges grip the surface of the card better than a flat ruler and help prevent even fairly small pieces moving around. They also last forever.

The disadvantage is that you can't measure with it, so it makes another "step" in the measuring and cutting process.

[Andy in Germany]

I’m trying to work out how to build an overall story arc into my "Ascension" games. Being pretty new to this, I started fairly simply with a few games based around a goal: I’d generally keep going until the good guys got the prize. Now I’m trying to build up some bigger story arcs for Ascension, not least so I have a clear idea what I'd like to build...

I've written up some ideas on the forum, but this includes a few ideas from other members and attempts to pull the ideas together into one story.

In this version of history, WWI ended in 1916, but things went downhill from there. Edward VIII refused to abdicate and asked his friend Oswald Moseley to form a government. Now, Britain is in a civil war and Scotland is fighting a war of Independence.

This growing crisis will influence events on Ascension, which is now a hub for trade between Europe and South America, to get around a trade war neither side wants to back down from. It is also a hub for international airship travel, so wealth, politics, and espionage rub shoulders with crime, poverty and extortion on a splinter of rock in the middle of the Atlantic.

So far I’ve got:

Secret Notebook:
This was the motivation for my first ever game, but I think it can come back as part of a larger arc. Sir Louis Mountbatten has lost his notebook, which contains various state and personal secrets. Edward VIII has sent agents to return it, but the new League of Nations also wants the notebook, to build a case against Mountbatten and possibly the king…

Scottish Honours:
The English Army was threatening Edinburgh, so the Scottish honours (crown jewels) have been spirited away to keep them safe. The tramp streamer on which they are hidden has come south to Ascension in the hope of transferring them to another vessel, but the Auxiliary police have heard a rumour…

The Paraguayan Ambassador.
I’ve done this before, but it worked well, so I’d like to revisit it with a bit more background: what does the Ambassador know? Why was she kidnapped? Which mysterious power is behind the abduction, and what do they want?

The Nefarious Treaties:
Sir Oswald Moseley is making secret treaties with supporters in the remaining colonies for mineral rights in exchange for arms and cash, or trying to foment dissent amongst French colonies in Africa. Of course, as soon as any revolt begins, the British Army will step in “to restore order” and make sure any natural resources are under British control.…

Socialists Of the Island Unite.
Dockworkers strike, demanding more rights and better pay, and are joined by Aerodrome workers rubbish collectors et c. Agents descend on the Island to either break the strike, or turn Ascension into a new Worker’s Paradise. Crime gangs are trying to use the unrest for their own profit…

Independent Ascension
The political situation in Britain is becoming so serious that the leadership on Ascension goes rogue in order to try and keep a lid on things on the Island and provide a staging point for resistance to the growing dictatorship. This of causes all manner of shenanigans as different groups try to take control of the situation by doing anything from controlling the power supply to kidnapping the governor.

Maguffin of World Domination:
Up in the old fever hospital, a group are making a “super weapon”. Is it the British Government? Another state power; or a group of cultists or mad scientists? Will there be a struggle to stop them, or will the mad scientists be persuaded to use their weapon to keep Ascension safe from Moseley’s government?

The One True Cross
A mysterious religious relic has been smuggled onto the Island, possibly a splinter of the One True Cross, the Sacred Mirror of Japan, or an Ivory Falcon reputed to have brought victory to the Armies of Ghengis Kahn, and allegedly stolen from his grave. Various entities are trying to control it, believing it to be a powerful weapon…

A right Royal Mess
Edward Windsor and his wife, Wallace Simpson, are known to have had many nefarious dealings, from contacts with the N*zi government in Germany during WWII, to being implicated in the cover-up of a murder in the Bahamas. The historical events read like Pulp stories, so what they would get up to as King and Queen opens all kinds of possibilities. I’ll leave it there as this post is getting long enough as it is, but will return to this subject…

Turf wars.
Ascension has a whole semi-legitimate industry in security and/or protection rackets, union busting et c. Local gangs are fighting over turf and commercial opportunities, and the American Mafia wants to move in. The British gangs immediately unite against the common threat, but any alliance between gangs will be very shaky and liable to break down at any moment…

That’s a starting point, but I’m sure there are more possibilities. I’d like to build a story around “the holes”; the large area of waste ground containing the remains of some failed mining operations and now the Island’s landfill and home to the stranded, destitute underclass of Ascension, (and the venue for “The Races”) but I haven’t yet worked out a scenario that works…

[Vagabond]

That's an exhaustive list of threads you are trying to pull together into one story arc and it's going to take some juggling to achieve it.
It'll make interesting reading though because the scope and range of your ideas is beyond anything I've come across before.

I have a similar idea for linked stories but with a very limited scope compared to yours, some of which I've gone into in my last blog post. I envision my location to be a bit like a TV series. Most of the story/action will be filmed in one place, a small trading station, with other episodes filmed on location to add variety to the games.

Good luck with your world building. I'm looking forward to seeing how it works out.
Cheers

[Spinal Tap]

I too am building a world from scratch, albeit in the fantasy setting of Aumera; I will be watching your thread with even more interest than usual now to see where it goes.

Pulp/Cthulhu is a new setting to me and I've just started the process with it and will undoubtedly be copying some of your ideas.

[FifteensAway]

No one knows where you are going with all of this better than you.  But I did wonder so Googled Ascension Island - both the Wikipedia article and Google Maps. 

A few things to bring into your story - the volcanic nature of much of the island and the minimally variable climate (small temperature range between average high and low throughout the year).  Maybe the endemic frigate bird can, literally, gum up some of the works.  [Not sure how much of this was mentioned in the earlier pages of this thread].

Seems crowding rather a lot onto a pretty small island.  Do NOT let that deter you.  That can even work to your advantage.

I'm thinking you can have a few different settlements and some incidents on the roads in between as the various factions 'compete' for attention.  And plenty of room for those secret bases to be tucked into that volcanic landscape.  And hard to find in the days before satellites - and with quite limited aerial observation. 

At a minimum I see a small port, an inland settlement, and a military base of minimal size and resources.  And a primitive airbase (review of thread and I see you have a control tower - and one I might 'steal' for my own use to build a low tower).  And I think we'd all love to see an airship base and the airship you'd model for it.

Maybe a hard scrabble and struggling sheep station.

So, just a few thoughts for you to consider - or trip over - as the case may be.  Shall be enjoyable seeing what you come up with and what else you model.  And I need to revisit the whole thread perhaps.

...and after that review of the whole thread and a couple more Google's, some of your buildings have brick construction but apparently that wasn't used much - hard to import such heavy material, almost always made locally, mostly concrete and volcanic materials in use (but apparently concrete was imported, so...).  Of course, you may have already determined there was a brick work on the island or maybe you've 're-engineered' the islands geology to suit your story.  Both work.

[Andy in Germany]

Many thanks for your ideas FifteensAway, a couple of specific thoughts...

A few things to bring into your story - the volcanic nature of much of the island and the minimally variable climate (small temperature range between average high and low throughout the year).  Maybe the endemic frigate bird can, literally, gum up some of the works.  [Not sure how much of this was mentioned in the earlier pages of this thread].

I hadn't considered the active volcano aspect, good point: that has potential for everything from a general mundane catastrophe right through to an evil mastermind plus minions in the volcano to some Cthulhu like beast of the Netherworld emerging from the depths: as if I don't have enough to deal with.

Frigate Birds are indirectly the moticvation for some storylines as bird Guano was still very valuable at the time, so some kind of (fake or real) mining operation may turn up at some point, although only the truly desperate of the Islands underclass will want to work for it, perhaps there may nbe people trafficking...

I'm thinking you can have a few different settlements and some incidents on the roads in between as the various factions 'compete' for attention.  And plenty of room for those secret bases to be tucked into that volcanic landscape.  And hard to find in the days before satellites - and with quite limited aerial observation.

There's an old fever hospital up on the mountainside which may become the centre or possibly the front of a secret base: I have several pictures of old observatories which would be a good starting point. Also in the real world NASA have and have had several bases on the Island which, with a bit of imagination, could become something more elaborate/sinister. As you say, pre satellites they'd be hard to find. The Island is pretty inaccessible from the sea apart from the main harbour, so you'd have to find a way of supplying them without the authorities knowing, or at least trying to stop you...

At a minimum I see a small port, an inland settlement, and a military base of minimal size and resources.  And a primitive airbase (review of thread and I see you have a control tower - and one I might 'steal' for my own use to build a low tower).  And I think we'd all love to see an airship base and the airship you'd model for it.

I'm thinking similar: the port/warehouse district, Georgetown, and the aerodrome would be a minimum, with races taking place on the area known as "The Holes" which would be located on the real life Lava flow north of Georgetown and south of English Beach. Remember that Ascenstion is a travel and transport hub so there would be a small civilian terminal at the airport too, which is really an excuse for some more Art Deco...

...and after that review of the whole thread and a couple more Google's, some of your buildings have brick construction but apparently that wasn't used much - hard to import such heavy material, almost always made locally, mostly concrete and volcanic materials in use (but apparently concrete was imported, so...).  Of course, you may have already determined there was a brick work on the island or maybe you've 're-engineered' the islands geology to suit your story.  Both work.

You're quite right of course: most buildings on Ascension are wood or prefabricated. However, "important" buildings like the Governor's house, church, barracks, and hospital, are made of something more substantial.

I haven't changed the geology, but as a trade and travel hub, Alternative Ascension is now a sort of British boom town. It is absolutely awash with increasing amounts of money, and I've tried to reflect this in the buildings. The warehouse and control tower, for example, are early buildings from the start of the boom, so they're made cheaply from wood, while the army buildings of the same era are prefabs made of concrete.
The Casino and the Bank are more recent, when the money really started pouring in, investors fell over themselves to finance such ventures. With this backing, geology was (partially) defeated by economics and more substantial materials were imported. However, you'll notice that while both are smart at the front, they are made of the same cheap brick around the back.

This will probably be continued with the hotel which will have a stone front for the large bedrooms facing the road, but elsewhere... well, the guests that frequent those rooms don't go there for the architecture...

I'd like to make a condensed version of the Governor's house at some point, though, to set the scene on the Island and give a bit of a contrast with the other buildings...



Oh dear, another massive lore dump. It's no wonder I have no social life whatsoever...

[Moriarty]

You need to get out in the fresh air a bit more - all this imagining things that might, or might not have happened will do you no good at all. :-)

[FifteensAway]

Andy, hobbys are important in life - keep us grounded and focused.  But 'real life' is always more important.  Maybe combine the two and let your hobby lead you to others who enjoy the hobby and that can develop a 'social life'.  You clearly have a strong creative streak - that means you should fit right in to creative environments, take a painting class maybe - or some creative endeavor.  Extend a little trust in others and you might find a whole new - and rewarding - world to traipse about in. 

We can live with you taking a break on posting if you need to.  Go spread your wings - and, hopefully, you will come back refreshed and reinvigorated with fabulous new ideas and projects to regale us about.

 

Now, go forth and 'conquer' lad.